LibreOffice 4.1 is let loose

Document Foundation makes new version available

The Document Foundation has made the latest update to LibreOffice, the open source collection of office software, available for download through its website.

It has announced LibreOffice 4.1 in a blogpost that claims a number of improvements and that it's "the most interoperable free office suite ever".

The Document Foundation said in the announcement: "Most of these improvements derive from the fundamental activity of certified developers backing migration projects, based on a professional support agreement."

Microsoft match

New features include changes in the Microsoft OOXML Import and Export filters and for Microsoft Office binary file formats, all intended to improve interoperability with Office 2013 packages.

Others include font embedding in Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw, which can help to preserve the appearance when a target computer does not have the fonts embedded, and the Symphony sidebar.

LibreOffice developers are working at the integration with the widget layout technique, aiming to make it dynamically resizeable and consistent with the behaviour of LibreOffice dialogue windows.

The Document Foundation is a non-profit organisation that has managed the development of LibreOffice since 2010, when there were fears that OpenOffice would be discontinued. However, not only is the latter still available, but the new OpenOffice 4.0 was made available just days ago.